Anglican Communion News Service

Address by Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane

Grahamstown Cathedral

9 August 2001

When I addressed you, three years ago at Botha’s Hill, we were still flushed with the euphoria of our first democratic elections and filled with anticipation for the “New Millennium”. At that time it was appropriate to establish a vision for the year 2000 and beyond.

We spoke of possible workshops to uphold Christ’s teaching on the nature of marriage and to promote its wider understanding. We examined the cruel impact of poverty and inequality and the issue of violence against women. We also addressed the issue of our children and the serious threat posed by HIV/AIDS.

Two things struck me as I re-read that address.

Firstly, how incredibly important it is for all of us to revisit our vision and measure our response to it. Do we just talk, network and socialize at events like this and go home with a warm and fuzzy feeling? How much has been done towards making the vision a reality? Do we need to adjust the vision within the context of developing realities? It is not for me to measure your successes, of which I have no doubt there are many. But I do urge you take this process of assessment very seriously.

Secondly I became acutely aware that, although we recognised in 1999 the seriousness of the HIV/AIDS threat, the situation has escalated dramatically since then. If we were in trouble at that time, what is our position now and how do we answer to the Lord for the role of the Church in all this? Can we even claim to have played a role? Have we failed a whole generation of South Africans by our failure to educate ourselves and our consequent inability to mobilize?

A friend of mine who counsels people living with HIV/AIDS tells me that for her the tragedy is the number of faithful young women who have been infected by unfaithful partners. This tragedy is compounded by the fact that the women cannot share their status with their partners because they fear that they will be accused of promiscuity and that their children will lose the financial support of the father. But the pain goes even deeper. When my friend suggests that, at the very least, they share their secret with their mothers, these young women are adamant that they cannot do so for fear of being rejected! How do we face our loving Lord Jesus as parents if this is how we respond to our own children?

As the Archbishop charged by all the other Anglican archbishops in the world to launch a programme whereby the church can address its Christian role within the AIDS pandemic, I have become increasingly conscious of how inappropriate it is for religious communities to snipe at government when we ourselves are hugely guilty of the sin of omission.

As Anglicans we need to ask how safe it is for people in our congregation to stand up in church and say: “I have tested positive. I need your love and understanding. I need not to be judged”. Do we assume that all people who are HIV positive deserve what they get:? Do we believe that if we drink out of the same communion chalice we can catch the disease. If we do it is because we are guilty of not educating ourselves about this incredibly important issue.

I know that many priests use Jesus and his attitude to lepers as an example of how we should react to people with AIDS. This is such a bad example. Leprosy is a highly contagious disease. HIV/AIDS is only passed on through an exchange of bodily fluids. In fact, the germ dies very quickly in open air. You and I are far more of a threat to people living with HIV/AIDS than they are to us. Because their resistance to disease is low, our flu is a threat to them. When our children have measles and mumps and we are careless about keeping them at home, we threaten the lives of their little playmates who are HIV positive.

If you feel I am on a soapbox, here. You are absolutely right. I know with every fibre of my body that we cannot afford to waste time – none of us, not you nor I. While it is always important to recognize the inequalities and injustices suffered by the mothers of our nation and today is a day when we especially honour the role of women in our turbulent history, it is equally important to recognize that the Mothers Union is an incredibly powerful force as we take on the “Struggle” against a diabolical threat.

Let me first share some important news with you.

I am pleased to announce an initiative - supported by Anglicans worldwide and driven by the Anglican Archbishops of Africa - that is geared to assist an effective sub-Saharan response to the AIDS pandemic because we are all working for a generation without AIDS.

This initiative is unique and a global first in that it draws together: faith-based communities; international agencies (such as UN AIDS and the World Bank), the donor community and pharmaceutical companies.

Most importantly, the programme is poised to become the critically needed catalyst that will ultimately bring governments, the private sector, civil society and faith communities into a synergistic and effective relationship as they, at last, join forces in this crucial battle for survival.

The main thrust of the initiative is to develop a basic “tool kit” that can be used to address nine core concerns. These are counselling, people living with AIDS, care, the role of leadership, prevention, spiritual guidance, orphans, funding and lobbying.

Although it is an Anglican initiative, the task ahead is so great that we plan to involve other Christian denominations and faiths, NGO’s and civil society. We are already actively supported by the Anglican Consultative Council, an international organisation; the Episcopal Church in the USA; Christian Aid (UK) the US Agency for International Development and UN AIDS. And I am delighted to report that the Mother’s Union will also be internationally represented.

The programme will be officially launched at a strategic planning workshop at Boksburg on Monday. The conference will address the nine concerns identified as key to the battle against AIDS and delegates will be equipped to return to their diocese throughout the continent armed with the ability to evaluate the situation in their region or parish. They will also have the skills to initiate programmes that address education, counselling, home based care and grief management because no-one should die alone, and no-one should care alone.

From a base of knowledge and understanding of HIV/AIDS, the workshop aims to establish and secure three dynamics - commitment, energy and partnerships. My prayer is that the Mother’s Union will become one of our most powerful partners.

Representatives from other parts of the worldwide Anglican Communion will be present to observe and assess whether a similar initiative would be appropriate in their countries and we are planning a conference in a year's time to evaluate and sustain the movement.

If one considers the ability of churches to reach deep into communities and to adopt a hands-on approach to the pandemic, there is little doubt that our commitment can and must impact on all Africa and, indeed the whole world. We know this is not going to be an easy task. In many instances we are going to have to cut across tradition and culture in terms of issues such as sex education for our young people and burial customs that take up too much land and place poverty stricken families into a permanent debt cycle.

I ask for your prayers as we embark on a prophetic challenge in which we dare not fail, especially in our role of providing spiritual and emotional healing.

One of the greatest lessons we South Africans learned from Martin Luther King is that we must also dream. That without dreams we achieve nothing. That dreams - such as ours of liberation from the yoke of apartheid - can come true.

So today I want to share with you my dream, which I hope will become yours. I dream of a generation – in our country and every other country worldwide – in which HIV and AIDS no longer exists. I know that this dream carries with it huge implications in terms of education and counselling and of our relationship with and care of people living with AIDS. It is also about the discovery of a cure and the availability of affordable drugs.

I know too that it is about justice, about the eradication of poverty and about forfeiting cultural traditions. I know that it is as much about changing attitudes within our faith communities as about persuading society to act differently. It is about mutual respect. It is about making it possible for young people to discuss intimate topics with us, their parents. It is about a judgemental older generation acknowledging that maybe we weren’t all that better than modern society – we were just lucky that AIDS was not around, as we explored our God-given sexuality.

The experts tell us that, regardless of all the publicity surrounding condoms, by far the majority of first-time sexual experiences occur around the age of 12 and that they happen without protection. This is simply because young people, no matter how well intentioned, have no understanding of the power of the sexual drive. This happens because we as church leaders, society and parents fail them. We fail them because we allow them to watch explicit videos and films but we don’t tell them about the joy of relationships built on mutual respect and nurtured by God’s grace. Do we ever tell young women that love is not proved by physical submission? Do we tell young people that sex with an unwilling partner is an act of aggression?

We teach our children to look both ways when they cross a road, we teach them how to drive and other life-preserving skills. But we fail to teach them that AIDS is an avoidable, behavioural and killer disease. Most importantly, we fail to instil in them the true worth of their humanity.

The Christian doctrine of humanity teaches that each human being is created in God’s image. This implies that each and every person has intrinsic worth and dignity. There is a rabbinical saying that before every human being there walks an angel proclaiming: “Make way, make way for the image of God.”

My dream of an AIDS-free generation may seem unrealistic, yet in the USA it has become a manageable chronic disease. Why is our situation different? As I attempt to paint our picture, albeit in very broad brush-strokes, it is not to discourage you but to enthuse you to commit the Mother’s Union to our global Anglican Aids initiative.

As you may already know, the United Nation’s special session on AIDS, which has just finished, has declared that the pandemic is a global emergency. Seventy-five percent of people living with AIDS worldwide are in our half of Africa and to deal with this we need leadership with a commitment to action.

I am convinced that statistics merely serve to distance us from human reality. So my intention is to put a human face on a pandemic that threatens our very survival – especially in our black communities.

Please remember that, as I attempt to put this human face on the AIDS pandemic in South Africa, most countries to the north of us are far worse off.

Here, where burial is still an important part of black tradition, we are fast running out of space in our cemeteries. Graves are often less than 12 inches apart. But we dare not underestimate the pain of breaking with tradition to opt for cremation.

Our most recent research reveals that women are at greatest risk, simply because they are most vulnerable to biological, social and economic factors. Even among married women there is a high level of economic maltreatment. The survey revealed that one in five husbands regularly withheld money for essential living expenses, such as food, rent or bills while spending money on luxuries for themselves. Violence against women is high and many face abandonment and abuse if they reveal their HIV positive status.

The problem of orphans is our most tragic and greatest challenge. Present trends reveal that, within four years, we will have more than a million orphans, mostly between four years and 15 years old. As parents die it is not unusual to find an eight-year-old acting as head of several other siblings. In these cases scavenging for food scraps in the nearest garbage dump takes precedence over school classes. The ranks of our street children grow at an alarming rate. All these children are heavily traumatized by the loss of their parents and the stress of the stigma attached to AIDS related deaths. Many turn to sex work or high-risk relationships.

It is a vicious cycle that must be broken by all who accept that our humanity calls us to be moral decision-makers.

The experts warn that even those affected households that have shown an amazing capacity to cope in the short term, will suffer long-term damage to individuals and society through factors such as reduced child care and education.

There was great jubilation earlier this year when several pharmaceutical companies lost a court case and our government won the right to import generic medicines. We also have a strong lobby for the administration of drugs that prevent the virus from being passed from mother to foetus. The sad fact is that even if we get the drugs more cheaply, our government simply cannot afford to treat all those who need it.

So is my dream a hopeless one?

Ubuntu teaches us that we are all related. We need to start acting like a family.

We all long for wholeness and strength, unity and purpose. We long for wholeness of the entire human race. We long for healed and whole lives. We long for better futures. We long for communities of wholeness where there is no violence, there is no crime, there is no fear. We long for a day when all people live in relationship with one another recognizing mutual interdependence and the need of one another.

Each of us longs to be a whole person, who within the love of God, is truly becoming who she or he should be, as created in the divine image. This is the hope we carry for our people in the transforming South Africa, and my hope for you as you struggle for wholeness.

Among South African men, there are severe challenges to that wholeness. We are perpetually challenged by the inequality and injustices committed against women. If all women were free, then all humanity would be much, much better off. The fact is that too many men have not yet accepted women as equals.

We must confess our complicity in this. Religious traditions, have for too long, endorsed patriarchy as God-given. We have failed to speak and change the climate that leads to the violence of rape and abandonment. A climate that victimizes women, makes them into objects and receptacles for unwanted and unplanned children and highly susceptible to AIDS.

We have, as religious leaders, all too often, counselled and instructed our women to submit to violent and abusive partners. We cannot condone this travesty any longer. We must find new pathways to equity and relationship in the spirit of Ubuntu.

One of the issues closest to my heart is the dignity and rights of women and children. It is an issue that strikes at our nation and involves so much more than legislation and talk about Constitutional rights.

Sadly, in most cases, it is men who are the perpetrators of the heinous crimes of violence and discrimination. It is violent and abusive men who consistently create headlines and sow fear and disgust. As sadly, even apparently respectable men are guilty of subtler, and often more insidious crimes against the vulnerable.

Those of us who care can no longer shake our heads from the sidelines. It is time for the good men of this country to take a stand. We need to show the entire world and, especially our women and children, that we are not prepared to accept the intolerable situation that prevails. We need to actively promote a dramatic change in how our society operates.

Now, I put it to you that the Mother’s Union is a dynamic aspect of our church leadership and challenge you to take up your role as those who set family values. Doctors have proved time and again that a person living with HIV/AIDS will enjoy a productive and normal life for up to five years longer if they have good emotional support from friends, family and colleagues, than one who has no loving infrastructure.

Surely there is no organisation within the Anglican Communion than our Mother’s Union that is better suited to lead the way. At a national level, I would remind you that you are a very powerful lobby. Yes, our Mother’s Union has the muscle to make governments and big business sit up. Within your own communities I know there is need for home nursing services, education and huge doses of old fashioned love. In your own homes, your influence is immeasurable. It is from our Mother’s that we absorb our values and measure our self worth.

I know that you represent many women already bowed by the curse of HIV/AIDS. Too many grandmothers are burying their children and battling to look after grandchildren. Too many women go to bed in the certainty that within a short time their children will be orphaned and left to fend for themselves.

Finally, I urge you to carry Ephesians 6:10 in your hearts: “…be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.” Human effort may be inadequate but God’s power makes all things possible.